


Black Tie, Red Cheeks

by kriegslastbraincell



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, Promposal AU, Reddie, Soft!, it's just cute and gay okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22272004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kriegslastbraincell/pseuds/kriegslastbraincell
Summary: How do you ask your stupid boyfriend with a trashmouth and extremely questionable sense of humor to the prom? With a pun, of course.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 77





	Black Tie, Red Cheeks

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a request for a dear friend of mine. Ilu Rin, I really hope you enjoyed this.

Eddie is sitting at the kitchen table, furiously scribbling a note on the back of a small envelope. His emotions leak though with a somewhat juvenile heavy-handedness that’s causing the tip of the pen to bleed profusely into the fibers. Crawling ivy and spidery tendrils eke out from the jagged angles of his letters and blend the shapes illegibly. 

Eddie’s cheeks flush. He pauses, looks down at the note, rereads what he’d written, and furrows his brow. 

The tip of the already bleeding pen explodes on the surface as he drags its wounded body over the letters again and again, marring them to an unrecognizable smudge. He sighs. Thinks that this is stupid. 

Eddie drags himself away from the table and upstairs to the bathroom. In the sink, he turns the envelope to pulp before flushing the sopping evidence down the toilet. No way would he risk tossing something like that in the trash with a mother like Sonia Kaspbrak. The imaginary questions he could hear his mother asking did nothing to ease the colour from his cheeks. 

As he stands above the swirling water, watching the corpse of his feelings disappear into the plumbing, the phone rings. 

Eddie rushes down the stairs, slides across the floor in his high socks, and scrambles to avoid (what he believes) is a near death collision with the corner of the phonestand. He takes a puff from his inhaler and picks up the phone. 

“Eddie Kaspbrak speaking.” 

“Holy shit, I didn’t think it was possible.” 

_ Ugh _ . “What, Richie.” 

“That you could somehow sound even more like a fucking nerd, Eds!” 

“Shut  _ up _ , Richie! And don’t call me that.” 

“Yeah, yeah, complain all you want but you love it.” 

“What do you want, dickweed?” 

“Well, I was going to see what you were up to, but apparently the spaghetti I wanted is cold this time of day. What a shame.”

“Shut the fuck up, Richie. Why don’t you come over then?”

“ _ Noooo _ fucking way, Eds!” Richie laughs. “I’m not coming over to your house. I just got rid of the crabs your mother gave me the last time, dude. I can’t risk that again.”

Eddie sucks in a breath and holds his hand up beside the phone. “You-!” 

Richie’s laugh spills through the phone’s speaker and flows over Eddie. His teeth find the chap on his lower lip and tug, pulling the skin away. A metal tang sweeps across his tongue. A twinge of pain follows. 

Eddie inhales sharply through his teeth and wedges the phone in-between his ear and shoulder. He grabs a napkin from the ornamental holder and dabs at his lip, frustrated when it comes away red. He frowns so deeply it sets premature age lines into his face. 

“You’re not funny!” He says between gentle pats at his lip. “Fuck you.” 

Richie coos on the other line. “Look, Spaghetti. Why don’t you come over and I can apologize?”

“Why should I, after that? Idiot.” 

“Because you  _ loooooooove _ me, Eddie.”

“Shut up, I do not.” Eddie sucks on his lip, feeling agitated all over again. (As if he’d ever stopped.) 

Richie pauses on the other line. A rare moment of quiet. Softly he says, “my parents aren't home again.” 

There’s little Eddie wants more than to pointedly remark about how irresponsible it is of the Toziers to leave their only son home alone,  _ especially  _ when their only son happens to be Richie Tozier, but he bites his tongue and blots his lip once more. 

“Okay fine, Trashmouth. But I can’t stay long. My mom will be back for dinner and I have to be here.” 

“See you soon, Spaghetti-Boy.” 

“Shut up, Richie. Just shut up.” 

Shortly after hanging up the phone Eddie finds himself dumping his bike on the front lawn, racing up the steps, and letting himself into Richie’s house. The door’s never locked here. Eddie can’t help but think Maggie and Wentworth never bothered to teach their son basic safety measures. After all, why else would Richie willingly traipse around in Derry piss water?

The house is eerily quiet when Eddie steps in. “Hey, dipshit! I’m here.” 

A moment later, Richie appears at the top of the stairs, his hair hanging limply and leaving wet pockmarks on his shirt. “Eds!” He beams excitedly. 

“That shirt is  _ hideous _ , Richard,” Eddie says, planting his balled fists on the jutting edge of his hips. 

“I know, isn’t it great?” 

Richie plants his ass on the polished bannister and slides down, leaving small scratches in the wood with the notches in his worn jeans. He hits the landing, stumbles, and falls into Eddie. Knocking them both off balance, Eddie screams and punches at his friend as they topple to the floor. 

“You ass! You asshole! Idiot fucking--RICHIE!” 

He’s laughing. Sweet Jesus, he’s in stitches. Richie rolls over, pulls his legs in, and hugs his midsection. His freckled cheeks glow with his delight. 

Eddie looks away, pulling his lips into a pout as his emotions dust his cheeks. “You could have killed us!” He gripes and pulls himself from the floor. 

Richie stops laughing long enough to jab a finger at Eddie and say, “I could have but I didn’t and you’re welcome.” 

He rolls up, ruffles his wet hair, and offers Eddie a smile nowhere near innocent. “Anyway, glad you’re here, Spaghetti-Man.” 

Eddie’s arms fold over his chest. “I’m not.” 

In an instant, Richie’s off the floor with a lanky arm slung around Eddie’s shoulders. “Yeah but you’re never happy. Nothing new.”

“You are such a dick!” 

“I know you are, but what am I?”

Eddie jams a finger into Richie’s ribs. “I swear to God you are the most annoying person on this fucking planet and I--” 

“Your mom doesn’t think so!” Richie says, worming away from Eddie’s impending wrath. He angles himself towards the stairs, just in case.

A look that Richie is all too acquainted with crosses Eddie’s face. His cheeks turn pink and his brown eyes narrow. Carried by his thin legs, Eddie rushes at the taller of the two: who’s already bolting up the stairs. 

“I’m gonna kill you, you dumbass!” 

“Shut up, you won’t do shit!”

“Richard!” 

“EDWARD!”

The bickering follows the two up the stairs, down the long and empty hallways of the Tozier home, and right into Richie’s bedroom. 

  
  


Their pseudo-fight ends when Richie collapses onto the bed, winded from Eddie’s incessant pinching at his bony ribs. The flat of his palm hits the unmade bed again and again as he breathlessly begs for mercy. Eddie lets up, but shifts his weight until he’s sitting on Richie’s stomach. His arms once again fold across his chest. 

Richie splays his arms. “Alright, alright. You got me. You fuckin’ got me, Eds.” 

“GOOD.” 

“Damn! Ouch.” 

“Shut up, Richie. You wouldn’t be in this situation if you kept your stupid mouth shut.”

“I can’t do that. I have a gift and I gotta use it.” 

“Oh my  _ God _ ,” Eddie shifts and stands. “I don’t know why I even came over here, I can’t deal with you.” 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Richie pushes himself up onto his elbows, grabbing at the raw air near Eddie. He squints. “Would you stay if I said I was maybe a little bit sorry?” 

Eddie reaches around and plucks a pair of dirty glasses nearly lost in the messy sheets. He scoffs as though it were a personal affront, and rubs the lenses clean with the hem of his shirt. With a severe look in his eyes and a patent tenderness in his hands, the glasses return to the rightful place: perched atop Richie’s slender nose. 

“I wouldn’t stay if you were a lot sorry,” he says, pinching Richie’s cheek. “But you wouldn’t be able to see without me, so as a law abiding good samaritan, I guess I have to stay. Otherwise you’d never know clear vision. Seriously, Trashmouth, how the hell do you even see out of those things? They’re filthy! I can’t believe someone who’s had glasses his  _ whole life  _ still hasn’t learned how to take care of them! And also--” 

Richie sits up, watches as Eddie moves around his unkempt room like a tornado. He nudges the frames of his glasses up while a gentle warmth pools in his chest and floods into his cheeks. He quietly hopes it goes unnoticed. 

“--ever cleaned your room? Like,  _ once _ in your life? I swear to  _ God _ , Richie, this pile of clothes has been in the same spot for the last year and...Rich? Richie? HEEEEELLOOO?”

It takes Eddie waving a hand in his face before Richie taps back into reality. “Yeah, what’s up?” 

“Have you even been listening to me, you idiot! I’m trying to  _ help  _ you here and all you’re doing is spacing out! Seriously, Rich, I don’t understand how you--” 

“Okay, let’s take a pause here, Spaghetti-Man. I don’t think I can listen to you berate me anymore until I’ve eaten something.” 

“Are you serious?! Have you seriously been sitting here, hungry?! Richie!” A small hand curls protectively around his wrist, using an unexpected amount of strength to pull the two of them up and towards the door. “Unbelievable!” 

Richie doesn’t fight. He just smiles on the receiving end of tropical storm Kaspbrak. 

  
  


Richie’s perched on the counter, flipping through the comics section of the paper that his father had left on the table a few days prior. Eddie, meanwhile, is boiling water and telling Richie every reason why sitting on the counter is unsanitary. 

“Hey, Eddie? Why don’t instead of telling me everything I’m doing wrong, you tell me what you’re making?” 

“Have a look for yourself, Trashmouth.” 

Richie straightens his back, peering over Eddie’s head as a handful of dry pasta is forced into the water. He chuckles. “Cannibalism. Nice.”

Eddie flicks hot water at the other boy. “Shut  _ up _ , Richie!” 

They laugh together. Eddie with some hesitation (only because he doesn’t want to give Richie the satisfaction. That, and he had something a little more pressing on his mind. It was  _ that  _ time of the year after all...)

“Look, just go sit at the table! Actually, better yet, go wash your gross hands!” 

“Really? I’m not going to eat with my bare hands, Eds.” 

“Go, Richie! Or you’re not getting food!” 

Indignantly, Richie slides off the counter and gently shoves Eddie; who howls in protest about hot stoves and third degree burns. 

  
  


Richie’s at the table, drawing circles in the old wood with his thumb. He smiles when Eddie places a bowl in front of him, but the expression falls when he’s presented with plain spaghetti noodles topped with a light dusting of shredded cheese.

“What the fuck is this? Count you out for meeting whatever wifely duties you might have in the future.” 

Eddie’s cheeks are red when he says, “look under the bowl, shit for brains.” 

“Under the--?” Richie cocks a brow, but grips the side of the bowl and lifts. A small, folded piece of paper clings to the bottom. “Eddie, what the fuck? I’m not playing your stupid game.” 

“Yes, you are! Read the stupid note, asshole.” 

“Who’s the annoying one now, huh?” 

“Still you, Tozier. Still you.” 

“Ppfftt,” Richie snorts, peeling the paper away. He sets the bowl aside, ignoring the pangs in his stomach. His fingers unfold the paper. In Eddie’s messy scrawl, it reads: 

> _**I KNOW THIS IS CHEESY BUT WHAT’S THE PASTA-BILITY YOU’D GO TO PROM WITH ME?** _

Richie’s eyes dart between the paper and Eddie. A long moment of silence passes through the kitchen. 

A spoon clatters. The stool that’d been holding Richie is suddenly toppled over, vacant, and on the floor. 

Richie is across the room in an instant, Eddie wound up in his arms. There’s a cacophony of noise filling the empty Tozier kitchen: Richie’s lips barely spilling one “yes!” before trying to begin another, the rubber soles of his shoes slapping the floor as he jumps, and Eddie in the prison of his arms yelping to be let down. 

“I fucking hate you, you’re so dumb and gay!’ Richie says, burying his face in Eddie’s shoulder to blind the other boy from the overflow of emotion that wells up around the corners of his eyes. 

“Hey! Your dumb, gay ass tackled me from across the room, don’t even give me that shit, Richard!” 

Their lips meet in a messy way, and Eddie can’t stop the heat from crawling up his throat and filling up the pale canvas of his face. 

When they part, Richie’s wearing a smile that Eddie knows all too well. 

“ _ What _ , Richie?’ 

“I already know what I’m gonna wear.”

Eddie attempts, with little success, to wriggle free. “Whatever you’re thinking, no!” 

_ And so begins the process of regret,  _ Eddie thinks to himself with no malice as Richie begins to ramble about the plethora of loud shirts he's thinking of wearing.  _ Nothing quite like a black tie to bring out a red face.  _


End file.
